The First Goodbye
by DivineProjectZero
Summary: The Number Tragedies, Part 1. She was his daughter, his sister, the love of his life. Then she rebelled, and all he had left was Matilda and loneliness. Yet she still can't untangle herself from him, so Alyssa decides to escape Arthur once and for all. AU


_**Disclaimer:** I don't own anything except for the plot._

**_Warnings: _**_AU. __Genderflipped America and Canada. Mostly one-sided USUK. Tons of upcoming angst and possible character deaths and whatnot in future chapters. _

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One day, Arthur Kirkland chanced to look out his tower and see black smoke billowing from afar. The source of the smoke was, surprisingly, not anywhere near the general direction of where the village was, but in the middle of a clearing he had barely taken notice of in the forest. He watched the smoke rise, like some ominous pillar of ash snaking its way up to the heavens or heavens-knew-where, and he realized that he better make sure none of the fire spread into the forest, where most of the fairies lived.

Muttering, he pulled his cloak around his body and stepped over to the balcony of his beloved tower. He hated the stairs; they took so much time.

He stepped off.

The drop down was a little too fast for his taste, but it was better than those blasted stairs. He had, unfortunately, landed in a pile of leaves, and he started to wonder if venturing out of his tower was worth this mess.

Brushing off the leaves from his cloak, Arthur set off into the forest.

After a great deal of time, he reached the source of the flames: a small house set ablaze in the middle of the clearing. It was obviously a human's house, from the remaining looks of it, and his interest dwindled away immediately. Human problems were best solved by humans. The fire would not spread, he could tell, and he wanted to leave before anyone from the village rushed in.

Then he heard a wail.

His interest suddenly back, Arthur walked closer to the burning building and saw that there was a bundle of blankets not far from the fire. It was a minor miracle that the blankets were still intact.

He carefully approached the blankets and lifted the top layer to come face to face with two crying babies.

Both were blonde and tiny, with short wavy hair growing from their small scalps. One of them was whimpering as tears leaked from tightly squeezed eyes, and the other openly screeched and bawled as big fat tears ran down chubby cheeks.

Not a very pretty sight.

He had caught glimpses of human babies before, but this…They seemed like an utter bother.

The loud one screamed so harshly that he was sure he would go deaf.

Ugh, they were so whiny.

Like Francis.

"Bloody hell, how do you make these things shut up?"

Arthur put the back of his index finger across the loud one's lips, as if gesturing for it to quiet down.

Remarkably, the baby did quiet down.

By chomping on Arthur's finger.

With a hiss of pain, Arthur attempted to withdraw his finger from the baby's sucking lips, but the tot was quite a champion in strength. Arthur gave up and watched the creature suck on his finger.

Then, the baby opened its blue eyes and giggled.

_Definitely _better than Francis.

"No parents, eh? Looks like you won't survive by yourself either."

Silently denying that his face had flushed into a cherry red, Arthur gathered up the two babies, now both quiet and happy that they were moving away from an intense heat source, into his arms and turned to the direction his tower lay.

"I guess you'll come with me."

Human babies were definitely not cute. Not at all. They were going to be such a bother.

Not like Arthur was going to put them down again.

Hell no.

"Both female, hm? I should name you…"

Arthur nuzzled into the soft blonde tresses that were becoming increasingly addicting, in both smell and touch, as he pondered what would be appropriate names for these two small human children he would now live with.

They were twins, right? Perhaps he could take the names he had read from a book long ago. He had read something about girl twins before.

"Alyssa and Matilda, was it?"

It certainly seemed fitting. So which one would be bestowed with which name? Arthur glanced down at the two babies. The quiet one had opened her eyes, which were a brilliant shade of violet, and was now staring up at him with a curious expression. The loud one with blue eyes was fisting his cloak and tugging on it, quite strongly.

"Let's say…you will be Alyssa, and you can be Matilda."

He kissed the blue-eyed baby's forehead for the first name, eliciting another bout of giggles, and kissed the quiet one's hair for the second. Both newly-named children looked up at him with smiles.

"I'm Arthur." He introduced himself.

Both girls squealed in unison, as if they understood that they had just learned the name of their new guardian. Arthur smiled.

"Well, well. If it isn't mon cher eyebrows."

Arthur's smile disappeared.

"Francis."

Golden hair tied back in a ponytail, a grinning man sauntered over to Arthur with a predatory expression on his face. The expression was replaced with a rather surprised one, however, when he caught sight of the two babies in Arthur's arms. Blue eyes widened as he leaned in to take a better look.

"Mon dieu, are those human children?"

Obviously irked by the presence of the other man, Arthur protectively turned halfway to shield the toddlers from view.

"Yes, have a problem with that, git?"

"You do know that human children are difficult to raise, cher?"

"Can it, frog. I know."

Francis was not heeding the silent warning radiating from Arthur, telling him to back off and not approach. The man was intruding in his personal space!

"Back off."

"Ah, but Arthur, I have never seen human children from up so close before! Allow me to look."

"You had your share of human virgins anyways."

"Irrelevant. Ah, they are ladies!" Arthur did not appreciate the sudden glee in Francis's eyes. "Care to share?"

Even for Francis, that was over the line.

"Die, pervert. You want to rape a child? Even I though better of you than that."

"I wouldn't lay a hand on such a young one." Francis let out a small sound of disapproval at the snarl. So did the babies. Arthur's face went slack momentarily before he cuddled the children closer to himself. The sight was amusing to Francis, apparently, since he was smiling that very disturbing smile he would hang on his face whenever a lady was in the near vicinity or Arthur burned his cooking. Arthur shivered.

"Mighty Arthur Kirkland, reduced to a child-loving peacemaker?" Francis teased lightly, causing Arthur to blush an interesting shade of red.

"Shut your indecent mouth, Bonnefoy."

Francis shrugged as a sign of defeat, before he suddenly frowned. "Arthur, you do know that humans do not take kindly to our kind? Raising one would not fit you, or any of us, for that matter."

Thick eyebrows gathered as Arthur scowled.

"I know, I know! But they don't have anyone to care for them." He indicated the still-smoking area behind him. Francis nodded in understanding.

"Ah, but since when did you care? You never liked humans before."

Arthur growled. Francis backed off, hands up in sign of surrender. The man turned, sighing and shaking his head side to side. "Fine, cher. Just do not become to attached to those. They do not last long, you know."

Watching Francis walk away, Arthur frowned and resumed his own walk back to the tower. He looked down on the babies with a troubled expression ghosting his features.

It was perhaps a little too late to heed Francis's warning.

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_/This is the beginning of my 1 year project of 2011, The Number Tragedies (sheesh, such a corny name). Twelve installments total, and it's USUK all the way. On fic per month, twelve fics total. As you can assume from the Tragedies part of the title of this series, there is tons and tons and **tons** of angst/death/general unhappiness going on. DO NOT FLAME ME. I have warned you. If you want to stick to fluff and hate fem!America, fem!Canada, angst, or stuff like that, this is your chance to leave._

_I am planning to avoid spoiling any upcoming content about this fic in general, so nobody is probably going to get what this series is really about until what, next month? lolz. Feel free to PM me if you don't get what's going on._

_Things get more interesting in the next chapter, I promise!_


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